Friday, July 29, 2016

of Citizen Clinton's speech last night, the bar however was set high and she has never been natural spellbinder behind the podium. Given that, she really had no choice but to delve into specfics and describe in detail her platform casting herself as a dogged doer of great things.
If I have any other reaction to her acceptance speech is that Bernie Sanders' influence has been profound this year quite literally in both parties, the democrats are promising to tax rate at the normal rate and Trump blustered about protecting the poor...(those people he'd been otherwise evicting and exploiting up to that point).
Thats pretty deep penetration for one candidate, that much Sanders can take away with some pride.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Its a truism with me that Great Age of Political Oratory is Behind Us. The power to persuade a nation as to a course or action or a particular policy has largely atrophied in the Age of the Soundbyte (where a great deal of rhetoric would be dismissed as mere heckling back in the day). Fifty years ago great speeches made whole careers, a happy talent for rhetoric was considered a key qualification for public office.
Now?
Not so much.
So its a little ironic that two of the best pulpit speechiers left in the game are both democrats and either former or incumbent US Presidents. I refer of course to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
They have contrasting styles to be sure...
With Bill Clinton it is all about creating a vast coherent energy field of pure intimacy "come here sit by me and I will tell thee a story" that is The Former President's most reliable schtick. The peculiar nature of his communion with his audiences literally inculcates the belief that he speaks to you and you alone.
If Clinton was a vocalist he'd be Elvis Presley softly resolutely crooning "Kentucky Rain" or perhaps in a more dramatic vein "Suspicious Minds".
President Obama on the other hand is an Apostle of Expansiveness and Optimism, speech last night to the DNC was a virtual blockbuster sequel to his 2004 Keynote in Boston. Literally, Obama beckons his listeners to come to the Top of the Hill With Him and Behold The Vast and Glorious Vistas Before Us. If Obama was himself a vocalist he'd be Louis Armstrong singing "Wonderful World", low and with boundless infectious confidence.
Now Trump on the other hand is very much a product of our degraded rhetorical times, a heckler whose syntax occasionally resembles pidgin english, his core go-to is always to incite in as few words as possible.
But lets also remember that talent for invective, so comforting to the perpetually aggrieved is what got him the GOP nomination so we dismiss it at our peril.
And I muse on in this fashion merely to point out the particular scope of the challenge for Hillary Clinton and her Acceptance Speech Tonight. She has to connect the dots on all the cliches and soundbytes, reassure, inspire but also reach even lower to commune with the audience & electorate within and without the convention center.
It is a reintroductory moment, programmed literally for making what is hoped to be an excellent second impression, it should not be squandered by any means.
Lastly the challenge for Secretary Clinton tonight is unusually acute because at least in the Democratic Party at this moment, the rhetorical bar is set high, good luck to her sez I.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Showed class and a sense of drama last night when he moved to make Clinton's nomination unanimous....he set a good example, nothing more can be asked.
Its important to remember though that back in 2008 Hillary Clinton was in the same situation as Bernie Sanders, she'd come up short in the delegate count she'd been cut dead by the superdelegates and she had plenty of supporters howling for a kamikaze finale to the Denver Convention.
But Secretary Clinton is an olde pro at politics, rgardless of her PUMA base ("Party Unity My Ass") she understands to get "party unity" you must set the example and give party unity. She backed the the Obama-Biden ticket to the hilt which to me is a strong indicator of the overall high quality of her character.
Lets remember that there was a lot of lingering bitterness against Obama with a lot of dark talk of "losing the women's vote", Sarah Palin's nomination for Veep on the GOP ticket can be directly traced back to said disaffection.
But all the same then Senator Clinton rose to the occasion with aplomb, as did Bernie Sanders last night...they both have set a good example going forward they are to be applauded.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Come What May, I am voting this November for the Woman Who Gives the N.R.A. the Screaming Bedspins.

Meanwhile Joanie Vennochi in a bracing return to form in Today's Globe snarks away at Hillary Clinton's lack of candor and forthrightness with respect to her email server and other alleged "scandals".
Then again this is Joan Vennochi, she more or less wrote the same column about John Kerry in 2004 chiding him for not coming clean about his war record when the Swift Boat Vets were tearing up the airwaves.
I saw Senator Warren's speech at the DNC last night, talk about another "bracing return to form" that woman has to pulpit skills to be sure! I suspect catcalls aside, that speech did Warren's many presidential boosters a world of good keeping their hopes alive. Our Senior Senator seems to have found an opponent worth of her razor sharp rhetorical skills, Secretary Clinton would be well advised to send Warren into doubtful districts she makes a powerful mind-changing case against Donald Trump.
As for Me,All I can say is, Do What Ya Gotta Do Just Don't Inhale Liz!

Monday, July 25, 2016

it feels like inside baseball stuff to me, likely given the embarrassment occasioned Wasserman-Schultz's resignation is justified but I would not be surprised if Clinton & Sanders were already in accord as to the DNC chair's ouster prior to this alleged scandal.
Secretary Clinton got the Veep She Wanted last week, so it stands to reason that Senator Sanders could get the DNC Chair he wants this week.
That sound like a deal?
Granted this makes party unity more difficult but unity is ALWAYS difficult for democrats, we need to distinguish between building a winning coalition within and without and fruitless outreach to determined recalcitrants.
Ultimately we should remember the DNC doesn't control the nomination, that is still the exclusive domain of "King Primary", they don't control enough of any process to change the outcomes out in the fifty separate primaries or caucuses.
Okay...anyone wanna vent feel free the comments section is...open.

Not my first choice for the job but I think he will wear well going forward. I wasn't too keen on Joe Biden eight years ago, but he rose to the occasion with aplomb so what do I know?
The whole vice presidential selection process has undergone a sea change since I was a wee liberal in short pants, a casual process of nigh elimination put Tom Eagleton on the ticket in 1972 which all put sent the party off a cliff in 1972. These days the vice presidential prospects seem to be vetted much more intensely than the persons that are at the top of the ticket, after that strict polling considerations hold sway to say nothing of the intangibles (helpful glibness, compatibility, lack of sustained body odor etc etc).
But it still comes down to one thing, can they deliver their home state, Kaine seems admirably suited to do that very thing. But then even that is a crapshoot, Spiro Agnew couldn't in 1968 and Sarah Palin could in 2008.

Friday, July 22, 2016

as far as his speech last night is concerned, Trump might've been backed into a corner ideologically speaking.
I mean consider his profligate lifestyle and many ideological diversions prevents him from running as a conservative even if movement conservatives were disposed to permit him to do so, and they are not.
His sexism, racism and thuggish nationalism prevents him from rebranding himself as any sort of moderate or heaven forfend, a liberal.
So really, Trump's only political option last night was to go "The Full Huey Long" and pose as some sort of vague revolutionary here to smash the elites and bring in the reign of the dispossessed in a way that won't alienate the vested interests.
And carrying that off demands an apocalyptic view of the Times We Do Live In, a veritable promise of a "Walking Dead" scenario if he himself is not elected.
Well...maybe this is all scary (and please remember fearmongers are seldom brave themselves) but gloom and doom doesn't often win elections as Saint Ronald Reagan so often pointed out.
I urge all and sundry not to underestimate Donald Trump at the same time he is still a candidate prone to saying and doing profoundly stupid and disastrous things....his remarks about NATO yesterday being a profoundly dangerous case in point.
We must therefore brace ourselves to our posts and our places this fall...its gonna be an ugly campaign but in some ways also enlightening, one we must win I hasten to add.

Adorned all the way with multiple allegations of sexual harassment from the many many leggy blondes said channel hires to read the news and keep aging choleric white men tuning in.
This is nothing sort of hilarious given the fact that Ailes is morbidly obese & older than dirt you fuse that with a malignant and politicized form of entitled misogyny and viola' instant scandal.
Frankly I shocked the whole thing didn't break sooner.
Allegedly his "Golden Parachute" supposedly amounts to 40 million USD which these days is nothing but a huge confession of guilt as far as I am concerned.
Good riddance, no idea if Fox News will remain a GOP mouthpiece, and in fact couldn't care less either way.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

pointedly and blatantly Texas Senator Ted Cruz declined to endorse Donald Trump in a speech before the RNC last night, he was lustily boo'd by a crowd gone mad from a week of nonstop wingnut sugar highs.
I'm gonna suggest Cruz is in a tough place here, his self respect (or what he calls his self respect) prevents him from endorsing Trump, like almost every other GOP leader he is heavily invested in a Trump loss this fall.
Thats having been said, if there is a man in the GOP with MORE enemies than Donald Trump it's Ted Cruz, so its a Somerville Cinch that he won't be at the table when the "Legitimist Faction" takes over assuming The Donald goes over the hump in November.
So to keep his hopes alive, Cruz must make a play for the anti Trump evangelicals and hope for the best. He really didn't have much room to maneuver last night and it showed....it was otherwise a dismal gruesome show in every way, the crowd surly and vicious, Cruz himself smug and demagogic.

Charlie Baker is sneaking zoning easements in the current budget so that a developer whose condos abut the State House Grounds can encroach a little bit thereon on behalf of some "Au Pair Apartments" ???
Let me understand this, Charlie Baker is SUBDIVIDING the HISTORIC State House Grounds to please some Sprawl Merchant????
Mother of Ghod HANDS OFF THE STATE HOUSE GROUNDS CHARLIE!!
I don't give a rat's ass about your 70% approval rating either, this is a BAD IDEA and the Legislature should set it aside immediately and soonest!
Certain lands, parks, refuges and historical sites in this state aare bequeathed to us as a legacy held in trust for our progeny, it is the essence of poor stewardship to allow a travesty like this to happen!!
I am urging my State Rep & State Senator to Say No to This, Long and Loud.
I don't give two hoots in hell who got a donation from whom, its a bad idea!!!

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Trump was nominated by RNC yesterday sans any real last minute shenanigans to deny him the top spot.
A lot of people doubled the carbon footprint of the USA on cable TV these last three months insisting there would be a bloody floor fight at the RNC, a threat which came to exactly nothing yesterday.
The skills to pull off such a coup just don't exist anymore, moreover unseating "King Primary" would mean doing some pretty awful stuff on live television something that probably gave the Antis the Jitters.
Stealing an election or even a nomination requires closed doors and the RNC has precious few of those these days.
Besides the people most opposed to Trump's candidacy are paradoxically the most indifferent to his actual nomination for President, because in turn they need him to LOSE to Hillary Clinton this fall in order for them to reassert their control over the GOP.
To La Famiglia Arbusto, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell etc, the worst thing in the world is not that Donald Trump won the nomination fair and square (in their world "shit sometimes happens), no their nightmare is having to coexist with Trump within the GOP. Getting rid of him therefore means passive aggressively throwing Trump under the bus this fall.
My other idle prediction is that I suspect, the GOP might institute some sort of a "Super Delegates" rule at their conventions, a'la the democrats in order to provide some sort of a brake on the belligerent passions of the party's base.

Monday, July 18, 2016

The Police Chief of Cleveland OH politely asked the Governor (giddy, spineless John Kasich) to suspend the state's infamous"open carry statutes" during the Republican National Convention this week.
Citing the US Constitution, Kasich declined to do so....
So I think, the Chief of Police in Cleveland is well within his rights to pull all his officers OUT of the Arena on grounds of their personal safety and simply establish a security cordon around the venue out of gunshot range.
If they just did that, ya think Kasich would show up at the convention at all?
Probably not, and if he really had the courage of his second amendment convictions he'd pass out a loaded AR-15 to every delegate in order to keep things...orderly.
After all the NRA insists "An Armed Society is a Peaceful Society", so it follows than an armed RNC will be a peaceful RNC right?
RIGHT???
Anyway I feel bad for any cop on security detail at the RNC this week, forget "Black Lives Matter" it seems their own Governor is backing down on them in a crudely craven and very public fashion as well.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

The Coup Attempt against Turkish President Erdogan seems to have ended in failure this weekend. Like Stauffenberg and the Valkyrie conspirators, the Colonels lacked sufficient reliable military resources to carry off the plan, this is clearly evidenced by the fact that no attempt whatsoever was made to isolate or seize Erdogan's person was made.
Its hard to figure out who to back here, both Erdogan and the Turkish Military were in a foot race to see who could end democracy in Turkey, looks like the President won that contest this weekend.
Assuming the usual tyrannical motivations Erdogan will likely interpret this coup as a signal to accelerate the theocratization of the military and the government, in other words purge-purge-purge!
What Erdogan wants is a society dominated by Mullahs and Mosques and Holy Book and the scholars that read the book and thus control it's interpretation.
Of course...there are rumors (for the Middle East is a sort of paradise for rumor and conspiracy theories) that Erdogan himself incited this coup as an excuse to purge the officer corps once and for all....
If true then this is a far more dangerous character than we realized...he bears watching to be sure, Turkey is a NATO partner at the moment crucial to the Syrian Crisis....but I wonder, if the price of his theocratic vision required him to exit NATO...would Erdogan do it?

Friday, July 15, 2016

Trump did pick Mike Pence as his VP candidate. From the Indiana Governor's perspective this is a low cost no brainer, if Trump loses he can align himself with the "Restorationist Faction" (roughly defined as La Famiglia Arbusto, Mitt Romney, Speaker Ryan, Mitch McConnell etc) and see if he can do some business in 2020.
If Trump somehow wins, Pence is Veep....and in either scenario he is quit on what was shaping up as an uphill reelection battle.
From Trump's perspective I wonder if some boring midwestern jobber a veep wasn't the price he has to pay for a quiet convention with no floor fight over his nomination?
I wonder, I mean it's a reasonable scenario given that the platform is already a wholesale recapitulation of conservative dogma down to remilitarizing the Rhineland, "wing nut pornography" so to speak.
In other words, I wonder if all this isn't Trump finally paying some of the political bills he ran up in the primaries?

Thursday, July 14, 2016

The Warren-For-Veep wave seems to have crested and receded. Thats good news all around (especially if you are Senator Sherrod Brown) Senior Senator Warren can keep her role as Trump's most dogged social media heckler and us democrats won't have to fight a special senatorial election next year.
Cuz thats a fight I don't want if'n ah kin avoid it.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

oust a ninety one year old Phyllis Schlafly as the reigning Dowager Empress of the Eagle Forum, a very very old established wingnut PAC that goes back to Barry Goldwater Days.
Today, The Eagle Forum is pretty small beer so the ouster seems a little comical , a nigh military coup in some postage stamp of nation so to speak.
Supposedly the dissidents are appalled by Schlafly's cozying up to Donald Trump, but it simply be that the Eagle Forum is a family run outfit and prospects of succession on that basis may be giving the Board of Directors the vapors.
Phyllis though, was once the very monster caricature of an conservative "empowered woman", a attorney and a noisy flake on behalf of defeating the ERA, the Panama Canal Treaty, Gay Rights and a loud advocate on behalf of clerical rule, patriarchy,the nuclear arms race and class rule unto perdition.
She reached her apogee under the Aufklarung of Saint Ronald Reagan only to watch other twitchier greedier wingnuts work her side of the street with much greater success.
She is probably the oldest living exemplar of wingnut cognitive dissonance, she railed against Nelson Rockefeller's divorce, kept her mouth shut about Reagan's first wife, made a bad bargain and lived up to the letter of it all with La Famiglia Arbusto. On the issues she was wrong about everything, if that isn't a life well lived in the GOP what is?

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Trump will be nominated for President by the GOP next week, there is a lot of palaver about there about last minute delegate shenanigans to force a second ballot, but these sorts of 19the century tactics don't play well on television and captioned "king-unmakers" just don't have those "Mark Hanna" skills.
Which is not to say we are somehow collectively less politically ruthless than the political barons of 1896, but that we are ruthless now in different ways.
Besides that Fat F**k won the primaries ya gotta honor that or risk a deeper fracture than even nominating Trump represents, if such a thing is possible.
Now as for the Veepstakes, if he is smart, Trump will take Pence a nice safe boring-ass governor with no outrageous history clinging to him. I doubt Pence will make a big difference on the campaign trail but Vice President's are supposed to deliver their own states or else make no stupid errors....so the bar is set low.
Moreover, Pence is probably hoping that Trump will get beat like a red headed mogul in November so he and the "restorationists" (ergo Bush Walker etc ) can take over and start up business as usual.
In other words anyone who wants to run with Trump has their eyes on 2020....so that dynamic will be starting up early.
Now if we are lucky though, Trump will go with Newt Gingrich, a bloated self indulgent wingnut rock star with an ego to match The Donald in every aspect. Between the two of them I think they can rack up six current and former wives, the Secret Service will have to bring in guys from the Alaska Office to guard them all....
Sorta shocked Marco Rubio didn't sell out his bloodline this time, that marks his as more cynical than naive' and thus someone to watch warily.

Monday, July 11, 2016

(and truly isn't crazy becoming Our New Normalcy?)....Governor Baker actually signed the Transgender Rights Bill....whoop whoop.
I guess he and the lege sort of quietly conspired to make sure the bill got signed late enough in the session to prevent any hope of a challenge by way of a ballot question this fall.
Cuz Citizen Charlie....he wants this fall to be about two things, No Donald Trump and More Charter Schools.....transbashing would get in the way of that abbreviated agenda surely.
So...Charlie has at least shored up his "moderate republican" props with the Boston Globe at least over the short term.
But I suspect all this goodwill towards the transgendered is a low cost way to get those props, remember this is the same Charlie Baker who campaigned in 2010 like a berserk Motorcycle Outlaw promising he'd shred any "bathroom bill" sent to The Corner Office.
The man is in short, a cynic, much like Romney or Weld, he isn't really a moderate or a conservative, but his overweening self devotion certainly makes him a no liberal either.
And in this state, a GOP Governor and a Democratic Legislature is pretty much "regression to the mean", and that in turn translates into very cynical governance indeed.
But what the hell, we seem to like it....me not so much.

Friday, July 08, 2016

are we still gonna double down on that whole "an armed society is a peaceful society" meme?
Because last night's sniper had method motive opportunity, the advantage of surprise and ALL the firepower Texas could hand over to him to kill cops.
Whatever his motivations, a generation of conservative social engineering handed over to this jobber all he needed to get his revenge in a brutal fashion.
Collectively, we are pointing a gun to our head, a Huge Large Caliber weapon and screaming to the world "You Are Next!!!"
And we've been doing it for years and likely the current massacre will do nothing to alter the situation.
We are granting by the lights of a dubiously narrowly defined constitutional fiat, the advantage of surprise, an upgrade of firepower and the air tight security of madness, to the violently inclined.
Its a wonder things like Dallas and Baltimore and on and on and on, doesn't happen every day, Oh Wait IT DOES!
We have all become simultaneous victims and perpetrators....we are armed to the teeth and killing one another on whatever whim boils in our heads.
THAT is the definition of National Anarchy.
And thats what we are down to....Survival.
Anyone else wanna survive?
Anyone?

Thursday, July 07, 2016

hoping to catch the GOP's vice presidential nomination on a ticket with Donald Trump. I can't believe that Brown is an A List Prospect in Trump's mind though, but the GOP presumptive nominee is of a changeable nature that defied logic so who knows?
Brown is an empty suit to be sure, but Trump must be able to find an empty suit to be his Veep that has a resume uncontaminated by successive routes at the polls....right?
Given all this, I doubt Brown can deliver New Hampshire assuming the local Cadres and the Spartans are all on their game, and he is at the end of the day a good looking jobber who got toasted back in 2012. At best Brown is a credible prospect only if something like a dozen other elected officials in the GOP feeb out or prove to be somehow unsuitable to run with the gamey twitchy likes of Donald Trump.
Why Brown would want to do it is a mystery....he may believe that all he has to do is put up a credible effort and assuming that Trump gets routed this fall he himself Scott Brown can bootstrap himself into contention for 2020.
Vain vague hope IMHO, if Trump auto destructs that'll only signal a general legitimist restoration in the GOP, the Bush's, Cruz's, Walkers & Christies will all start jockeying for power and Scott's phone calls and tweets will go unanswered I assure you.

Friday, July 01, 2016

Boston Herald Columnist Howie Carr went up to Bangor Maine this week to whoop like a Hollywood Indian before a Donald Trump for President Rally all in an effort to express his envy dislike and resentment towards the Senior Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren.
A grown ass man carrying on in public like a stereotypical Apache Berserker....and no one calls the Department of Mental Health?
Shit if Howie Carr was homeless he'd be in the tank right now....